Influenza

Video transcript

Voiceover: Despite the fact that a
highly effective influenza vaccine is available every year, some
people choose not to get vaccinated and as a result they're not protected
against the circulating influenza strains. So, whether you're out in the
community at a vaccine clinic or even talking to family and friends
you might come across some excuses as to why people aren't getting vaccinated. So, I thought it might be helpful
to address the top five excuses that we've heard in the past
and how to best address them. So, the first excuse you might
hear is, "I never get sick. I'm not getting vaccinated this year
because I've never had the flu." Well, to this I would say people who have
never been in a car accident still wear their seatbelts right? Why wait for a bad thing to happen
when you can prevent it from happening in the first place. It doesn't make sense to me to
wait to get sick with the flu when there's a safe and effective
vaccine that you can get at the beginning of the flu season and
protect yourself for months. Okay, so another excuse you might hear
is, "I got the flu shot last year, and it made me sick. I
felt awful afterwards." So, some people can have adverse
reactions to the influenza vaccine. So, after making sure that this person
didn't have an adverse reaction like an allergic response or some other
kind of complication, I would say, "Well, imagine if a completely
inactivated, or weakened virus in the influenza vaccine was
enough to get your immune system to put up a fight and make you
feel sick, imagine what a live strong virus could do to you. Getting sick with the circulating
virus will make you feel much worse, and so it's best to prevent
yourself from getting a bad illness. Another excuse you might here is, "The
flu shot didn't work. I got sick anyway." First I would say, "Well, are
you sure that you were sick
with the influenza virus?" Flu-like symptoms can be caused by
tons of different kinds of viruses and a few bacterial species as well. The influenza vaccine
is not a magic bullet. It doesn't prevent all kinds
of infections from happening. But perhaps you were infected with
an influenza virus that got you sick. Remember the influenza vaccine only
protects against a few strains, the most common strains that will
be circulating in that season. So it's possible that you got sick
with another circulating strain that wasn't covered by the vaccine. So, with this information some
people might say, "Wait a minute, if I can still get sick from the
influenza virus then what's the point?" Like I said, the annual vaccine protects
against the most common influenza strains for that particular season. So it reduces your chance of
getting sick significantly. Does it eliminate the risk completely? Well, no, but that doesn't
mean that it's not worthwhile. So the most common excuse we hear is,
"The flu shot hurts. I don't want a needle in my arm. I just don't
think it's worth it." For people who are particularly
pain averse, like I said
before, there is a nasal spray available that doesn't
involve needles at all. So, they can still protect
themselves without getting injected. However, you know the flu shot if
you are going to get vaccinated with the intramuscular injection the
flu shot does hurt, but what hurts even more is getting sick with the flu. I would much rather be sore for
a few days than be stuck in bed missing school, missing
work and potentially putting the people around me at
risk of getting infected. With this information hopefully
we can combat some of the excuses and get more people vaccinated
and protected against the flu.